Everyone talks about using takkyubin and luggage forwarding. It’s pretty straightforward to do this at the airport counter or from a hotel when the bell desk takes care of it for you, but most non-Japanese speaking people are probably intimidated by walking into a Yamato (Kuro-Neko/Black-Cat) depot with suitcases to be forwarded to your next destination or the airport. It is possible to do this from a convenience store but I’ve never tried because the staff at conbini are usually not astute at shipping luggage to the airport. The employees at a company depot are well-versed in all services offered.

Since I tell everyone to forward luggage and to take advantage of takkyubin whenever possible I thought it would be good to post a blog entry here with photos of when I actually did foward my luggage to Narita Airport from a Yamato depot office around the corner from my Tokyu Stay apartment hotel. As you can see in the third photo, two bags to Narita Airport one week prior to my departure for a little over Y2600. Not a bad deal and sure beats the heck out of hauling all of that omiyage on the train or bus.

Yamato Transport office in Kanda

Interior office area at the depot

Yamato employee filling out my waybill in Japanese, my payment on the counter.